Tag: intolerance

Two Sides to Prejudice?

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Last Wednesday the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a weeks-old video of an incident that took place outside a fundraiser held in Yorba Linda, California.  Muslim families who gathered to raise money for the poor, including a women’s shelter, were harassed and taunted by protesters.  The graphic and hate-filled nature of the protesters’ calls and speeches given by participating elected officials — including Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly, who, as Bethany Firnhaber writes at The Scoop, said she knows “quite a few Marines who would be happy to help these terrorists to [an] early meeting in paradise” — are utterly shocking.

Firnhaber goes on to note the misleading nature of the reporting about the event.  She writes, “When Muslims protest something they perceive as a threat to Islam, the coverage often frames them as scary, intolerant and dangerous. Until CAIR widened our perspective [by eventually releasing the video], the ugliness of the protesters at Yorba Linda was simply left out of the frame.” Continue Reading →

Shari'ah: The New Communism

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An “expose” on how Shari’ah is threatening America is now out from The Center for Security Policy, a neocon think tank founded by in 1988 by one of Reagan’s Defense team, Frank Gaffney, Jr.  Gaffney’s hard to take seriously, particularly when he pens stuff like, “Will Obama Enforce Sharia Blasphemy Laws,” (CSP site, Sept. 13) but the Christian Broadcasting Network’s happy to promote the new report.  Written by Team B II, explained below in the introduction, the report targets Islam and Sharia as the new great threat to American freedom.

This study is the result of months of analysis, discussion and drafting by a group of top security policy experts concerned with the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time: the legal-political-military doctrine known within Islam as “shariah.” It is designed to provide a comprehensive and articulate “second opinion” on the official characterizations and assessments of this threat as put forth by the United States government.</blockquote Continue Reading →

Shari’ah: The New Communism

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An “expose” on how Shari’ah is threatening America is now out from The Center for Security Policy, a neocon think tank founded by in 1988 by one of Reagan’s Defense team, Frank Gaffney, Jr.  Gaffney’s hard to take seriously, particularly when he pens stuff like, “Will Obama Enforce Sharia Blasphemy Laws,” (CSP site, Sept. 13) but the Christian Broadcasting Network’s happy to promote the new report.  Written by Team B II, explained below in the introduction, the report targets Islam and Sharia as the new great threat to American freedom.

This study is the result of months of analysis, discussion and drafting by a group of top security policy experts concerned with the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time: the legal-political-military doctrine known within Islam as “shariah.” It is designed to provide a comprehensive and articulate “second opinion” on the official characterizations and assessments of this threat as put forth by the United States government.</blockquote Continue Reading →

Shari’ah: The New Communism

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An “expose” on how Shari’ah is threatening America is now out from The Center for Security Policy, a neocon think tank founded by in 1988 by one of Reagan’s Defense team, Frank Gaffney, Jr.  Gaffney’s hard to take seriously, particularly when he pens stuff like, “Will Obama Enforce Sharia Blasphemy Laws,” (CSP site, Sept. 13) but the Christian Broadcasting Network’s happy to promote the new report.  Written by Team B II, explained below in the introduction, the report targets Islam and Sharia as the new great threat to American freedom.

This study is the result of months of analysis, discussion and drafting by a group of top security policy experts concerned with the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time: the legal-political-military doctrine known within Islam as “shariah.” It is designed to provide a comprehensive and articulate “second opinion” on the official characterizations and assessments of this threat as put forth by the United States government.</blockquote Continue Reading →

Why Don't We Hear More from the Religious Left?

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By Daniel Schultz

It’s a question I get asked a lot, and am sure to be asked more, now that The Book (Changing the Script: An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century), is out.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy answer. In fact, there isn’t even one answer. Instead, many separate factors come together to create the knee-jerk equation of religion with conservatism that we know and love.

First, let’s face it: Conservative religious beliefs and practices are sexier than liberal ones. The drama of sin, conversion, and (usually noisy) salvation is much easier to grasp than the calm, rational consideration of God as the ground of existence and ethical imperative in community. Conservative religion also films better: You couldn’t make The Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum playing a Unitarian pastor, for example. And what better way to shorthand religion in movies or television than with the rituals of the Catholic church? Imagine the baptism scene from  The Godfather set in a Minnesota-nice Lutheran congregation!

So until someone finds a way to craft a compelling narrative out of committee meetings and quilting circles, I’m afraid we’ll always have a conservative bias in the media’s consideration of religion. Continue Reading →

Why Don’t We Hear More from the Religious Left?

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By Daniel Schultz

It’s a question I get asked a lot, and am sure to be asked more, now that The Book (Changing the Script: An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century), is out.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy answer. In fact, there isn’t even one answer. Instead, many separate factors come together to create the knee-jerk equation of religion with conservatism that we know and love.

First, let’s face it: Conservative religious beliefs and practices are sexier than liberal ones. The drama of sin, conversion, and (usually noisy) salvation is much easier to grasp than the calm, rational consideration of God as the ground of existence and ethical imperative in community. Conservative religion also films better: You couldn’t make The Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum playing a Unitarian pastor, for example. And what better way to shorthand religion in movies or television than with the rituals of the Catholic church? Imagine the baptism scene from  The Godfather set in a Minnesota-nice Lutheran congregation!

So until someone finds a way to craft a compelling narrative out of committee meetings and quilting circles, I’m afraid we’ll always have a conservative bias in the media’s consideration of religion. Continue Reading →

Why Don’t We Hear More from the Religious Left?

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By Daniel Schultz

It’s a question I get asked a lot, and am sure to be asked more, now that The Book (Changing the Script: An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century), is out.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy answer. In fact, there isn’t even one answer. Instead, many separate factors come together to create the knee-jerk equation of religion with conservatism that we know and love.

First, let’s face it: Conservative religious beliefs and practices are sexier than liberal ones. The drama of sin, conversion, and (usually noisy) salvation is much easier to grasp than the calm, rational consideration of God as the ground of existence and ethical imperative in community. Conservative religion also films better: You couldn’t make The Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum playing a Unitarian pastor, for example. And what better way to shorthand religion in movies or television than with the rituals of the Catholic church? Imagine the baptism scene from  The Godfather set in a Minnesota-nice Lutheran congregation!

So until someone finds a way to craft a compelling narrative out of committee meetings and quilting circles, I’m afraid we’ll always have a conservative bias in the media’s consideration of religion. Continue Reading →

The Perversion of the Shari'ah andthe Limits of Tolerance

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By Tariq al-Jamil

This article is part of an ongoing series that examines what Shari’ah is, how the media often get it wrong, and how it’s being used to create fear of Islam and Muslims and to justify continued military defense of “American values.”

There are multiple levels of historical misinformation that fuel the manifold misuses of the term “Shari’ah” in today’s popular media. Journalists and politicians have been quick, either consciously or in ignorance, to pander to the crude association of the term “Shari’ah” with the worst examples of violent and repressive acts undertaken by governments in places where Muslims predominate.  This categorical equation of the Shari’ah with violence, repression, and stagnation — and hence antithetical, or at the very least incompatible, with American notions of freedom, justice, and democracy — is now ubiquitous in the U.S. press and popular imagination.

The politicization of the term “Shari’ah” by ideologically driven groups is not limited to the United States and Europe but rather its uses have been equally fraught in the modern Muslim world. In the wake of colonialism, Muslim “reformers” sought to simplify what appeared to them as a complicated and specialized Islamic legal tradition. Shari’ah’s plurality of legal opinions and flexible methodology impeded governmental efficiency and was seen as ineffective for meeting the needs of modern civil societies. Continue Reading →

Florida Mosque Firebombed

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Yesterday a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida, was firebombed but the culprits were caught on tape. The videos are posted at the Florida Times-Union. The bomb was exploded against the back wall of the mosque and while no one was hurt, minor damage was done to the structure. Today an interfaith group of church leaders issued a statement in solidarity with the Muslim community.

“A possible bias-motivated attack on a house of worship should be of great concern to Americans of all faiths, and particularly to our nation’s religious and political leaders,” said Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Those who shape public opinion must begin to speak out against the rising level of anti-Muslim sentiment in our society.”

Continue Reading →